Anisotropy and Corotation of Galactic Cosmic Rays

The intensity of Galactic cosmic rays is nearly isotropic because of the influence of magnetic fields in the Milky Way. Here, we present two-dimensional high-precision anisotropy measurement for energies from a few to several hundred teraelectronvolts (TeV), using the large data sample of the Tibet Air Shower Arrays. Besides revealing finer details of the known anisotropies, a new component of Galactic cosmic ray anisotropy in sidereal time is uncovered around the Cygnus region direction. For cosmic-ray energies up to a few hundred TeV, all components of anisotropies fade away, showing a corotation of Galactic cosmic rays with the local Galactic magnetic environment. These results have broad implications for a comprehensive understanding of cosmic rays, supernovae, magnetic fields, and heliospheric and Galactic dynamic environments.

Observation by an air-shower array in Tibet of the multi-TeV cosmic-ray anisotropy due to terrestrial orbital motion around the Sun

We report on the solar diurnal variation of the galactic cosmic-ray intensity observed by the Tibet III air shower array during the period from 1999 to 2003. In the higher-energy event samples (12 and 6.2 TeV), the variations are fairly consistent with the Compton-Getting anisotropy due to the terrestrial orbital motion around the Sun, while the variation in the lower-energy event sample (4.0 TeV) is inconsistent with this anisotropy. This suggests an additional anisotropy superposed at the multi-TeV energies, e.g., the solar modulation effect. This is the highest-precision measurement of the Compton-Getting anisotropy ever made.